Berkman Blog Buzz

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  For a complete picture, please visit our Berkman aggregator.  Last week's Blog Buzz is here.

"According to WIRED, "Eighty percent of the respondents consider it stealing to download music for free without the copyright holder's permission, and 92 percent say they've never done it, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press and Rolling Stone magazine."  But it can't possibly be the case that only 8 percent of Americans (~24 million) have *ever* downloaded without permission...." Derek Slater, "P2P Surveys Becoming Almost Entirely Worthless"

"Now it is not surprising that the World Intellectual Property Organization often aligns itself with intellectual property claimants against those representing the public domain, competition, or non-IP claims. It is disturbing, however, that it expresses this bias while serving as a provider of admistrative panels for the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy...." Wendy Seltzer, "WIPO Crowing Again About 'Cybersquatting'"

"Despite what may seem to be a common set of problems, United States technology companies should not be lumped into a single category when it comes to their participation in Internet filtering and surveillance practices.  Plainly, there are different issues at stake when a company is making technology products that are designed to carry out filtering regimes in other countries around the world as compared to a company that is making general-purpose technology that happens to be used to filter or spy on Internet-based communications...."  John Palfrey,  "Written remarks at Congressional Human Rights Caucus hearing regarding China today"

"I’m spending the next two days at the second Al-Jazeera Forum, “Defending Freedom, Defining Responsibility”. I’m speaking on a panel on “Media and Power” tomorrow morning, but will do my best to cover the rest of the conference, sharing my notes on people’s talks with you with a minimum of commentary...."  Ethan Zuckerman, "Opening Sessions at the Aljazeera Forum"

"Microsoft has a new blogging policy that makes some laudable steps toward greater accountability, transparency and respect for the user, as IDG's reporter Jeremy Kirk recounts the announcement by Microsoft counsel Brad Smith... So if this policy had been followed in the Michael Anti case, what would likely have happened? Here's one possibility...." Rebecca MacKinnon, "Microsoft's new blogging policy, recommendations for Google, and lessons of history"

"Microsoft's announcement is somewhat helpful in this parsing process, though of course does not provide all the answers. Start with the presumption (though I know one might take issue with this starting point) that a United States company is competing in the marketplace of another state that has an extensive filtering and surveillance regime in place.  (For examples, see the OpenNet Initiative's country studies.)  Consider whether we think the ethics are, or may be, different in the following scenarios, when a US company: 1) blocks access to content published by a citizen of another state at the explicit request of that other state, a) which blocking disallows the content to be viewed by another citizen of that state,  b) which blocking disallows the content to be viewed by those requesting to see it from states other than the home state of the author (such as the United States)...." John Palfrey, "Microsoft's new policy on blogging, censorship, and surveillance"

"Professor Terry Fisher has the difficult job, as the Day 1 Rapporteur, to present in 10 minutes the OECD conference conclusions. Here are the main points he made a few minutes ago...." Urs Gasser, "Professor Fisher Presents Conclusions on OECD Digital Content Conference"

"...A mashup that lets people add cellular dead zones (not-spots) to a Google Map? I know several places where I lose service predictably every time I drive there. Cellcos have this info but they are keeping it from us...." David Isenberg, "Mashups we want"

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